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Sage Northcutt isn’t letting past disappointments derail his march to the top.
Despite missing a chunk of his career due to injury and COVID-19, Northcutt said he’s just getting started and is poised to enter his prime years in the sport. Northcutt told The MMA Superfan he still has a lot of work to put into his career, and being 27 years old puts him on the precipice of his athletic prime.
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He said:
“But you know being back, I'm only 27, and I've got so much left in my career and I believe that my prime’s in my 30s as I've heard. I think there's there's a lot that I can do with my fight career.”
Northcutt had a stellar career in the UFC before he moved to ONE Championship in 2019, and the American star was poised to rise to superstardom quickly.
That trajectory, however, was halted when Northcutt suffered a knockout loss to Cosmo Alexandre in his ONE Championship debut in May 2019. Northcutt also suffered a facial fracture that required surgery and an extensive recovery period.
‘Super’ Sage then contracted COVID-19 after he recovered from his injury, further keeping him on the sidelines.
Nevertheless, Northcutt returned to action in May 2023 with a sub-minute submission win over Ahmed Mujtaba at ONE Fight Night 10 in Denver.
Sage Northcutt sets his sights on Shinya Aoki
There’s no official word of Sage Northcutt’s next matchup in ONE Championship, but he keeps tabs on one Japanese legend. Northcutt said in the same interview that the fight he wants to do next is against former ONE lightweight MMA world champion Shinya Aoki.
If he gets past ‘Tobikan Judan’, then Northcutt will start aiming for ONE lightweight and welterweight MMA world champion Christian Lee.
He said:
“You know, that’d be an awesome fight to make in the future. But right now, I'm focused on this fight going through with Shinya Aoki and having this fight first and that's where my mindset’s at. But after that, I could definitely see that in the future, you know, a fight with Christian Lee.”
Watch Sage Northcutt's entire interview below:
